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Cuba will always be a target of the US, says minister
Cuban Vice Foreign Minister Fernando Remirez said Monday that Cuba will remain a target of the United States, because of its achievements since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959.
Washington's long-standing hostility against Havana is due to achievements made by the country after over four decades of socialist construction, Remirez said. He was speaking after a public conference on the US-imposed blockade on Cuba.
The conference was part of more than 300 activities scheduled to address the issue of the four-decades US embargo.
Remirez stressed that the hostile policies of a dozen US administrations against Cuba had resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000 people, and caused losses amounting to 72 billion US dollars.
"The Cuban people have suffered from more than four decades of actions taken by the Cuban-American mafia in the south of Florida state, and its influence on the US government to keep the unfair embargo policy," he said.
Remirez also spoke of pressure exerted by the US on the 191 member countries of the United Nations to vote against a resolution presented by Cuba, which condemns the US blockade.
The 55-page resolution contains the list of damages to country by Washington's hostile actions.
"The principal goal of the blockade has been none other than imposing economic and social asphyxia on the Cuban nation, by depriving it of its fundamental subsistence means," according to
a report sent to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Since 1992, the UN General Assembly has approved most of the resolutions presented every year by Cuba demanding an end to the US embargo.
Last year, the Cuban resolution was approved with 173 votes in favor, four abstentions and the only negative votes coming from the United States, Israel and the Marshall Islands.
Cuba denies US claims of links with bio-terrorism
Cuba denied on Monday a renewed US accusation that it has a limited biological arms program and denounced a new White House-led "subversive actions plan" against the Caribbean country.
Roger Noriega, the US secretary of state for Western
Hemisphere Affairs, told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Thursday that Havana has a biological warfare program.
"We continue ...to believe that Cuba has at least a limited, developmental, offensive biological weapons research and development effort and is providing dual-use biotechnology to other rogue states," Noriega said, repeating a US accusation made last year.
Cuba's foreign ministry said in a statement that Noriega "openly lied" in order to link Cuba with bio-terrorist activities. "It is evident he did not learn from the ridiculous actions made by his colleagues John Bolton, Dan Fisk and Otto Reich."
The ministry called on the US administration "to show it is not lying and present the slightest evidence to support its accusations.
"It is shameful that top government figures in the United States have to lie before Congress to try to justify their discredited anti-Cuban policies," it added.
The foreign ministry also condemned the "shameless declarations" of Noriega that Washington would intensify its efforts to step up subversion, its propaganda campaign and international pressure against the country.
According to the ministry, the White House would work hard
for the strictest enforcement of the blockade against Cuba, including travel restrictions and measures against foreign investment in Cuba, and threatened new actions against Cuban diplomats in the United States.
The ministry rejected these threats, noting: "Mr. Noriega suffers from a stupid arrogance and acts like a fanatic member of the terrorist groups based in Miami, obsessed with the
destruction of the Cuban Revolution."
Bolivian president refuses to quit under opposition pressure
Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez
has said he will not leave office under the pressure of the opposition, according to reports from La Paz, the administrative capital of the Andean country, on Monday.
Facing a call for a national labor stoppage to start on Monday and the threat of a civil war, Sanchez said the armed forces and the police will enforce the compliance of the Constitution and safeguard public order and security.
"There are many people who are announcing a civil war. That will not happen, because the majority of Bolivians love peace as away to end poverty," the Bolivian leader said in a speech.
The situation in Bolivia has worsened since a clash three
weeks ago between police and protesters blocking roads that left six people dead in Los Yungas region, northwest of La Paz.
The incident came amid demands by Aymara peasants that the government solve their social and economic problems. The
coca-leaf producers call for the suspension of the eradication of their product or its replacement with other crops. Coca leaf is the principal raw material to produce cocaine.
The peasants are also opposed to a planned 5-billion-dollar pipeline that will carry Bolivian natural gas to the United Statesand Mexico through Chile. They demand that the government supply natural gas to more ordinary families before any exports are made.
24 countries back Venezuela's proposal for FTAA fund
A total of 24 countries have expressed support for Venezuela's proposal to create a fund in the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) to cope with adjustments in national economies, reports from Port of Spain, capital of Trinidad and Tobago, said on Monday.
The reports quoted Venezuelan negotiator at the FTAA trade negotiations committee, Victor Alvarez, as saying the Structural Convergence Fund had received support from 24 countries.
Among them were four members of the South American Common Market (Mercosur), 14 members of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), several members of the Andean Community (Ancom), plus Panama and the Dominican Republic, said Alvarez.
He explained that the fund would aim at strengthening institutional capacities, improving competitiveness, responding
as adjustment came in trade liberalization and achieving balanced social and economic development among the participants.
The fund would make promoting economic growth the ultimate mission of the FTAA members.
Alvarez added that the proposal was contained in a ministerial declaration which will illustrate the role and goals of the fund.
Initiated by a US-sponsored proposal at the First Summit of
the Americas in Miami, Florida, in 1994, the FTAA aims to eliminate trade barriers among 34 nations on the American continent. If finalized, the FTAA will become the world's largest free trade zone with 784 million potential consumers, stretching from
Alaska, the United States, to Argentina.
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